:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/37339846/This_Date-in-History-Timeline.0.png)
15 years ago today on WCW Monday Nitro from Las Vegas, Nevada, the West Texas Rednecks (Barry and Kendall Windham) defeated Harlem Heat to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship.
15 years ago today on WWF RAW is WAR from Ames, Iowa, Triple H defeated Mankind to win the WWF Championship for the first time. There were two debuts on this edition of RAW: Stacy Carter (future ex-wife of Jerry "The King" Lawler), aka Miss Kitty, who was a valet for then-Intercontinental Champion Jeff Jarrett, and Lilian Garcia, the WWF's first full-time female ring announcer since Mike McGuirk in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
5 years ago today, WWE presented Summerslam (WWE Network link) from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. 14,116 were in attendance, with 369,000 homes watching on PPV, which was down from 477,000 in 2008. This would be the first of six consecutive Summerslam events to be hosted at the Staples Center. The event was the return of The Undertaker, making first PPV appearance since Wrestlemania 25.
- In a preshow dark match, Beth Phoenix won a 15-diva battle royal.
- Rey Mysterio defeated Dolph Ziggler to retain the WWE Intercontinental Championship.
- Montel Vontavious Porter defeated Jack Swagger.
- Jeri-Show (Big Show and Chris Jericho) defeated Cryme Tyme (JTG and Shad Gaspard) to retain the WWE Unified Tag Team Championships.
- Kane defeated Great Khali (w/ Ranjin Singh).
- D-Generation X (Triple H and Shawn Michaels) defeated The Legacy (Cody Rhodes and Ted DiBiase).
- Christian defeated William Regal in just eight seconds to retain the ECW Championship.
- Randy Orton defeated John Cena to retain the WWE Championship. The match had three restarts after Orton (1) was disqualified, (2) was counted out, and (3) had an illegal pin.
- CM Punk defeated Jeff Hardy in a Tables, Ladders, and Chairs match to win the World Heavyweight Championship. (Note from yours truly: Curtain Jerker did a writeup on the main event during his Summerslam main events countdown earlier this month. Absolutely worth about ten minutes of your time.)